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Aaah yes, Valentine’s Day. A special day for most people, but an especially special day for me and my relationship with Canon Inc. A lot can be said about our relationship, but nobody will ever be able to truly appreciate what we have together. Back when I started this blog, there was a lot of doubt about my true motivations for doing so. I want to take the opportunity today to tell you something very important. And that is that LOVE was the only motivation I had back then when I started this blog. Not just any kind of love, but true LOVE.

It’s the kind of love that lasts forever, no matter what happens. We can have our differences, we can fight and have arguments, hell, our paths can even separate and take our lives into different directions. But our LOVE for each other always remains, burning like an eternal flame in our hearts. And as they say, what’s meant to be together, will always find a way.

Sure, I’ve had a lot of criticisms and said a lot of harsh things about Canon Inc. in the past — all very valid in my opinion. But it’s precisely BECAUSE of my LOVE for Canon Inc. that I did that. I’ve worked for this company for a great deal of my life now, and I want this company to succeed. I want our customers to be happy. I want to wake up every day and be motivated to come to the office and play with my toys. I want that shit to actually fucking work the way it’s supposed to. And that’s why I continue to push very hard to ensure that Canon Inc. does its best to stay the best in this industry. If that means that I have to bash some of our products, then that’s what will happen. If it means that I have to call Maeda along with other executives and harass him on the phone, then that’s what will happen. If it means that I have to put my health at risk and spend a couple of nights in intensive care, then that’s what will happen. You get the point.

When you LOVE, you CARE. And when you CARE, you try your best to help the ones you LOVE to improve and to succeed. You’ll always be brutally honest to them, because you know it’s for their best interests in the long term. And really, that’s always been my motivation for wasting a great deal of my valuable free time writing posts on this blog, only to give people the impression that I’m probably crazy or have no life, or possibly both.

It’s exactly 5 years ago today that I received the heartwarming love letter from Canon Inc.’s lawyers, ordering me to shut down my blog. February 14th, 2009. I’ll never forget that day. It was the kind of event where you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when it happened, for the rest of your life. You know, kinda like how it is with the Kennedy assassination and 9/11. Getting such a letter on any other day of the year is significant enough, but the fact that I got it on Valentine’s Day reveals its true purpose. There can be no doubt that this was an expression of LOVE from Canon Inc. — an answer to my own strong feelings of LOVE towards them. Thanks to their very thoughtful and touching letter, this blog got a ton of exposure that I would never have been able to achieve on my own. Like I mentioned above, when you LOVE someone, you try your best to help them succeed, even if you have to be a little harsh sometimes. And this was definitely Canon Inc. helping me to succeed.

In the years that followed my LOVE for Canon Inc. has only gotten stronger. So today, on this very special day, I will drink to this special relationship and celebrate the time that we’ve been able to spend together. And I want to end this post with a poem that summarizes all my feelings for Canon Inc.:

Like this:

All the Nikon fanboys are complaining and weeping like girly men around the Internets because of a recent video of Scott Kelby explaining why he switched to Canon. It’s endless amounts of entertainment. Just go here and read the comments. That’s just one example. You should check out the dpreview forums for even more comedy.

Fuck the megapixels, give us exceptional image quality instead. Most pros are satisfied with 12-16MP. Look at the 1DX. It’s “just” 18MP, but the images are absolutely gorgeous. Even Kelby ditched Nikon and is now using the 1DX because it’s the fucking best camera on the planet right now. And remember, this is the same Kelby who was hugging a Nikon D4 last year like his firstborn baby.

“First Impressions This was my first time shooting with the 1Dx, and I gotta tell ya — it is a camera absolutely born to shoot sports. I shot at 2,000 ISO all night and you don’t even see any noise (I did no noise reduction). Michael says the Falcon’s crew routinely shoots at 5,000 ISO and you just don’t see any noise, but after the way they had raved about it, I was expecting insanely low amounts of noise, and that’s what I got.

Better than the low noise… …the auto-focus system on the 1Dx. It’s AF is insane! It’s so fast, and so precise that I know I’m picking up shots I would have missed otherwise. That’s the part that really surprised me. I need more time with it to really get the little nuances of setting it up for my style of shooting, but of everything on this camera, that was what impressed me most.

Everything about the 1Dx feels fast. I was shooting at 12-frames per second and I know that’s only 2-frames faster per second than what I’m used to shooting, but it felt like it was 10 frames faster.”

Admittedly Kelby does come across quite weak in the above video trying to justify the switch. However, from everything I’ve blogged here in the past, I can honestly say that there are two very very very valid reasons for the switch:

The lower noise and overall MUCH better image quality on the 1DX and 5D Mark III.

And this has nothing to do with me working at Canon USA. I’ve been very critical of Canon from the moment I started this blog, to the point that Canon fanboys suspected I was working for Nikon’s marketing department. The simple fact of the matter is that I only care about the truth and based on my expertise, will honestly tell you what I think is better.

Sure, it may be true that some black SUVs, with no license plates, sporting just a long red stripe on the sides and fully darkened windows, stopped by Kelby’s office with some of our undercover guys and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I can’t confirm nor deny that. There are some rumors spreading online that those same black SUVs were also seen near the homes of Chase Jarvis, Joe McNally and The Lord of the Speedlights. Quite possible. Let me just say that you shouldn’t be surprised when more photographers switch to Canon in the near future. As I reported many months ago, we’ve been having discussions with McNally for a long while now. We got the in-camera HDR feature he wanted in the 5D Mark III, but last I heard he wasn’t quite satisfied with it yet. The HDR images coming out of the camera didn’t look overprocessed enough to meet his high standards. We’ve been sent a link to some examples of what he’s looking for, and our engineers are busy getting the dirty-supersaturated-radioactive-halo containing-ultra high pass look he requested into the next firmware update. I’m confident we’ll have McNally on board as a Canon Explorer of HDR Light very soon.

I just hope Canon Inc. hasn’t lost their focus on what exactly matters when professionals are concerned and have learned what works with the success of the 1DX and 5D Mark III. What makes those bodies successful is the combination of incredible autofocus system and image quality. Megapixels don’t matter. Make everything 16MP as far as I’m concerned, but make it 16 sharp, extremely low noise, no artifact, high dynamic range, color accurate and overall fucking superb megapixels. Just look at the 70D image quality; it fucking sucks ass. I pray to God they don’t fuck up the future bodies with too many megapixels and crappy image quality. But knowing Canon Inc. I for one won’t be surprised when they do decide to fuck everything up again.

And finally to all the Nikon fanboys I say this: Continue to kiss Nikon’s ass even in the wake of them screwing you over and downright raping your ass (D800,D4 green color casts and D600 sensor oil etc. etc.), instead of being critical, and see how well that’ll work out for you in the future.

This is the Yongnuo YN-E3-RT. It’s cheaper than Canon Inc.’s ST-E3-RT, AND it has features we’ve been asking for and Canon Inc. still hasn’t included for us in a firmware update, such as second curtain sync using the wireless functionality. It also has a built-in AF assist beam emitter. And it’s compatible with the Canon 600EX-RT. It’s fucking incredible. You can get it here.

This is what happens when Canon Inc. refuses to listen and act fast. I’ve blogged about the missing features months ago. It was clear that second curtain sync was a feature people needed days after the release of the ST-E3-RT. But up till now, we have fucking nothing whatsoever!

If Canon Inc. is fast enough, they might be able to also add the ability to control zoom levels of the flashes wirelessly, before Yongnuo updates their firmware. They might even add the second curtain sync for ETTL as well as the one from Yongnuo can only do it in manual mode. But we should probably not hold our breaths waiting.

I’m getting fucking tired with these slow-ass Japanese engineers, I’m telling you. Never in my life would I have expected to deal with this much stress at this age.

If it’s not the slow response to feedback, then it’s the lies. I’ve covered that in the past, but this recent blog post on Lens Rentals has a lot of truth to it, and I recommend you check it out if you know what’s good for you:

As long as we’re on the subject of catchwords, it’s probably worth tackling ‘Weather Sealed’ or ‘Weather Resistant’ next. Many people seem to believe that means ‘waterproof’. When you take lenses apart all day you find out it usually means ‘we put a strip of foam rubber behind the front and rear elements and scotch tape over the access holes under the rubber rings’.

It’s better than no weather sealing, certainly. And some (but not all) ‘weather sealed’ lenses also have internal gaskets around barrel joints and other added bits seals. But I haven’t seen one manufacturer yet tell us exactly what weather their lens is sealed against. Snow? Rain? Sunshine? Wind? Well, it can’t be wind because the lenses we spend the most time taking dust out of are mostly ‘weather sealed’.

Let me be very clear about this: DO NOT TRUST the ‘weather sealed’ bullshit from Canon Inc. Make sure when you’re out in the rain you’re using a rain cover for your camera. This includes the higher end bodies such as the 5D Mark III and 1DX and the L lenses. You have been warned.

Like this:

You know I don’t write you often, and I’m not one to beg for gifts, but this year I feel that I should make an exception. I know you don’t usually get letters from men in their fifties, and I understand if you may, at least initially, be a bit surprised. But if you’re like me — and I know I am — then you’ll at least continue reading out of sheer curiosity instead of immediately moving on to the next letter.

I’ve been here arguing for over 5 years on my blog that Canon Inc., my employer, should focus more on image quality instead of megapixels. It seems — and you’ll have to excuse my French — the fucking assholes at the marketing department at Canon Inc. just can’t get my message through their heads. And if they can, they apparently lack the brian capacity to process what I’m saying. Honest to God, I’ve given up to try and understand what it is that is blocking their mental capacities, but I’ve come to suspect that they’ve sustained major brain damage due to the chronic sexual repression that currently plagues the Japanese society. At least that’s my leading hypothesis right now. I mean, I don’t know about you and Mrs. Santa and how willing she is to satisfy your needs, but not being able to have sex in a normal and healthy way, as the case is right now in Japan, will drive you fucking crazy.

So being the kind of unselfish and caring person that I am, I would like to ask you if you could deliver some new and working brains for the entire marketing department at Canon Inc. this coming Christmas. And if it’s not too much to ask, also some fucking clues about what professionals actually need and are asking for in this industry, as opposed to the goddamn amateurs who think megapixels is the holy grail of photography. I know those guys over there are really going to appreciate it if you could do this.

Stand back with your puny 1DX, Uncle Bob’s got the moment with his new 41MP watch

I mean, seriously Santa, just recently I almost fell off of my chair here at the office, when a watch was announced with a 41MP camera built in. A fucking watch!! Soon my goddamn microwave oven is going to be capable of taking 41MP+ images of the food I’m heating up that look awful as fuck. If Canon Inc. doesn’t realize now that megapixels don’t matter, but instead the quality of pixels, then they never will. And this is not going to be good for my health Santa, so please consider doing what I ask if you don’t want me to show up at the North Pole to kick your ass.

😥

And on a final note Santa, if you’re on your way to Japan, do you think you could perhaps fly by some countries in the middle east and take down a few of those drones that fucking scumbag Barack Obama is currently flying over there? Innocent families and children are dying there almost every week because they’re being bombed by those drones, and it fucking pains me to see this going on while nobody the fuck says something about it. People have no empathy these days, it would seem. Why is that Santa? Why?

Fuck you Obama. Fuck you very much.

Do you think you could intercept some of those drones and have Rudolph,
Dasher and the other reindeers kick them down or something? Perhaps navigate your sleigh close enough so a well aimed kick to the left or right with their back legs on the wings can break and send them crashing down? Would that be too much to ask, Santa? I think you would do the world a great service if you could do this Santa. And especially the poor children in those countries who have to grow up in fear of being bombed and either die or spend the rest of their lives homeless and disabled. Just look at the video below Santa, and tell me it doesn’t break your heart to see those kids crying and suffering like that?

As you see Santa, I’ve so far mostly asked you to help others, but as for myself, there are some things that I wish for and maybe you can help me as well. I would appreciate it a lot if you could also tell the Japanese to fucking update the old EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II lens this coming year because it is fucking soft and Nikon has had an advantage with the 14-24mm f/2.8 for way too long now. Canon Inc. needs to fucking release a sharp 14-24mm f/2.8L lens soon now because I’m tired of waiting. It should be as good as the latest 24-70mm f/2.8L II in terms of image quality. Please make sure you tell them when you’re there ok? The 35mm f/1.4L II and other lenses can wait. We fucking need a sharp wide angle large aperture zoom.

Merry Christmas.

That’s it Santa, many thanks in advance, and I look forward to having my wishes here fulfilled.

I have been here for over 5 years now arguing that we should focus on image quality and Canon Inc. still isn’t fucking listening, as we recently saw with the 70D:

I’m getting fucking tired of pointing out that increasing the megapixels while having to apply noise reduction to keep the noise levels low is FUCKING POINTLESS. All detail gets lost anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DON’T YOU FUCKING MORONS IN JAPAN UNDERSTAND THIS????????

If you can offer a compact camera or DSLR that can take 12MP images in low light shot at ISO 6400 that really look like ISO 400, or even better like ISO 100, then I think you have a chance at competing with smart phones. Otherwise fucking forget about it.

Canon Inc. (7751), the world’s largest camera maker, cut its annual profit forecast and predicted its first drop in sales of models with an interchangeable lens as consumers switch to smartphones to take photos.

Smartphones are eating into digital camera sales as companies such as Apple Inc. and Sony Corp. release new handsets with stronger built-in lenses and sensors to lure shoppers. The value of worldwide camera shipments dropped 19 percent in August from a year earlier, a ninth consecutive monthly decline, according to the Camera & Imaging Products Association in Tokyo.

“The downward revision is larger than expected and will have a negative effect on Canon’s stock price,” said Takashi Aoki, a Tokyo-based fund manager at Mizuho Asset Management Co. “Smartphones are creating a structural problem for camera manufacturers.”

Yeah sure you ignorant motherfucker, blame it on the smartphones. What the fuck happened to innovating and giving consumers a fucking reason to ACTUALLY WANT A COMPACT CAMERA OR DSLR???????? With the files looking like crap, no wonder consumers choose a phone instead! Might as well choose a smaller more convenient device if the bigger ones produce the same crap anyway.

At least Fuji gets it:

PIXEL QUALITY IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT!!!!!!!! GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEAD YOU PIECE OF SHIT MOTHERFUCKERS IN JAPAN!!!!!!!! THIS MEANS LESS MEGAPIXELS, BIGGER PIXELS, AND FAST AND ACCURATE AUTOFOCUS THAT COVERS THE WHOLE FRAME AND IS NOT FUCKING CRIPPLED!!!!!!1

Don’t deliver, continue to act like fucking morons, and see what’s gonna happen you fucking assholes!

When that new full frame Fuji sensor comes out we’re gonna be fucked. FUCKED I tell you!!

Jesus fucking Christ, I can get so worked up over this shit. I need a drink. I’m out,

Like this:

Yeah I’m a bit late but I actually work for a living here at Canon USA, so sue me. The EOS 70D is out, and you can see some of what’s to come with the 7D Mark II in there. Most importantly the new sensor with on-sensor phase detection autofocus, which, as far as I’m concerned is one of the best innovations we’ve had in a long while. This is going to open up a whole host of possibilities and new features, most of which Canon Inc. will introduce with the higher models.

I mentioned a few posts ago how I was wrapped up in an internal battle with Japan about the godawful 9-point autofocus system. Man that struggle alone lost me another 20% of my hair. I managed to convince Japan to step up the AF system on the lower models, and the 70D now has the same AF from the 7D, which is a big deal. Yes, take note, and you have me to thank for it.

Of course this means the 7D Mark II is gonna have to get the AF system form the 5D Mark III. Before you start smiling keep in mind that the price of the 7D Mark II is gonna be much higher than the 7D. But as far as I can see right now, it’s gonna be worth it. Especially with the frame rate we’re planning on having on it.

The only thing that concerns me right now is the image quality. But before I post about that I’m gonna wait for Japan to deliver the production firmware so I can be fair about it. I don’t know what it is with the Japanese and megapixels. I thought I had won that battle long ago with the 5D Mark III, but they keep on pushing it. I pray to God that the new medium format lineup gets ready soon so that the marketing department can masturbate all over the megapixels there while they leave the 35mm sensors where they are right now.

It’s a fucking shame that the 70D has the autofocus system that should have been in the 6D. Canon Inc. just completely fucked the 6D up by including such an ancient AF system on it. Mainly because of that crap autofocus system I can’t recommend that camera to people when they ask me. You’re just better off getting a 5D Mark III. And if you just can’t afford that, you better get the Nikon D600, tho it’s not that great compared to the 5D Mark III, which is still the best fucking DSLR in the history of human civilization, if we don’t look at the 1DX.

1. To my eye, the Canon 6D and Canon 5D mark III behaved similarly in this aspect – high-ISO performance.
2. There is a definite (but not that an incredible) jump from the Canon 5D mark II, to these two cameras.

[..]
5. The Nikon D600 performed surprisingly poorly, especially if you think of how fantastic the Nikon D3s and Nikon D4 perform, and how the Nikon D3 was the high-ISO king for quite some time. The D600 that I had, did have the latest firmware, so I can’t explain the noticeable poorer performance compared to the other cameras.

Keep in mind that the 5D Mark III is slightly better compared to the 6D with regards to image quality for stills, and much better if you’re doing video (moire, aliasing etc.). Canon Inc. just fucked with the image quality on the 6D and totally sent everything to hell with the piece of crap 9-point AF system.

But what’s even more interesting here about Van Niekerk’s observations is with regards to the Nikon D600. The reason is because this, AGAIN, proves that those goddamn motherfuckers at DxO Labs are fucking fooling the entire industry with their bullshit benchmarks. Just take a look at the screenshot below. You’d think that the D600 is so much better compared to the 5D Mark III and 6D based on those scores. Yet, in reality things are completely different, and I’ve shown this before with my analysis of the piece of crap D800.

DXO Mark Sucks Balls

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, this isn’t a surprise to you. Why people still take those morons at DxOLabs serious is beyond me. I’ve given up long ago to understand this shit. I have better chances understanding my wife to be perfectly honest with you.

Yo’ kin’t go wrong wif a D800 acco’din’ t’them fuckwads at DXOLabs

Anyway, I’ve got a conference call that’s about to start with Tokyo regarding the new 14-24mm lens so until next time. Take care!